The Grey Area
by Firako-chan
Summary: Miranda has become a different person, not one that Lizzie and Gordo particularly like, but they still need her, especially Gordo. So, when the built-up tension explodes in near war betwen the two girls, what's a good boyfriend to do?
1. Miranda speaks

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Disney, I guess. Not me. If you didn't guess already or anything.  
  
A/N: This is my first Lizzie Maguire fic, I've mostly hit anime before. Not terrible original, but maybe a little more plausible. Miranda centered, but supposedly L/G. It's no fun for your character to actually get the one they want. This is just my idea of one thing that could happen in high school.  
  
My name is Miranda Sanchez. Just Miranda, or occasionally Sanchez, I suppose, but only from those people who decide that it's oh-so creative and original to call people by their last names. Join the football team, or better yet, the army. The plain fact is that I always get the impression that no one really likes me enough to give me a nickname. Lizzie and Gordo, good lord, even Larry Tudgeman has a nickname, even though it's highly self- propagated. It's only gotten worse since Junior high. Back then I was only an outcast, unlucky enough to be born out of the inner circles of our mindless society, now, well, now as you can see, I'm the cynic, the pessimist, the girl you'd be unlucky to ever be paired with for some dumb U.S. History project. To tell the truth, I suppose it really stems entirely from Ms. Lizzie Maguire, my best friend. After 8th, it was painfully obvious, that I was never going to pull away from Lizzie at all, by following in her footsteps. She's got that All-American Christian Girl thing down to each curl in her completely natural looking blonde hair. So where Lizzie could be loved, well, I could be hated. It's not really that hard to tell the truth. Everyone's trying so hard in these adolescent years, if you take a step back, it's easy to prey on people's fears, dreams, inequities. Not to mention Gordo. Gordo who I thought was perfect for me a year and a half-ago. Gordo who I think is still perfect for me. He's not the perfect All-American Boy, but maybe that's why he loves Lizzie all the more. He's no idiot, but he makes himself see people's good points, simply because Lizzie wants him to. It's hard to believe they're still my friends, is it not? They need me; I mean come on, at the lunch table, it would be awfully quiet, without me going on some anti-mainstream, anarchist, anti-humanity rant, and Gordo arguing Lizzie's point of view. No, not really. Boy, don't you catch on fast?  
  
The true reason that they need me is that I know them both, through and through. I may not understand them, and I may not be like them, but these years we've spent together has been enough to teach me more than I need to know. Lizzie and Gordo, are the couple. The one and only, the perfect couple. Meaning they have to get in their perfect little squabbles, and talk to their perfect best friends, who will talk perfect sense to them, and they'll make up on the next perfect day. Well, except for the perfect best friend. I'm the only one who will fit the position, so they have to put up with me. Lizzie comes running to my house every three weeks or so, interrupting a perfectly good Avenged Sevenfold song, to cry on my shoulder, disturbing as it must be to her, with the cut-and-safetypinned sleeves, and the torn pantyhose along the rest of my arms. And I pat her on the back and say, "Cheer up, Lizzie. I'm sure Gordo." And an hour after she's left Gordo'll call up, background noise painfully absent of the ubiquitous hacky-sack bouncing against his Chuck Taylors. Where I say. "Cheer up, David. I'm sure Lizzie." Yes, I call him David. Mostly because no one else does, and mostly, as well, because he hates it, which does a good job of flattening the suspicions of others that my feelings toward a certain boyfriend of a certain best friend of mine may be anything other than platonic.  
  
Occasionally, I think to myself that I've taken it too far. A few too many spikes and d-rings, a few too many scary Thrice songs, and Avail CDs. A little much razor to my tongue. But in the end, it's what I do; it may not be who I am, but it's what I do.  
  
end  
  
This won't all be Miranda POV. To tell the truth, I'm really tired of there being an enemy in all these stories, a bad guy, and I'm out to prove that you really don't need one (especially if you make your antagonist your main character, effectively transforming them into an anti-hero.) 


	2. Davidchild?

Disclaimer: hint - it's the same as the last chapter.  
  
A/N: This is written in Gordo's POV, if you can't tell by the chapter title, or I forget to name the chapter or something.  
  
Sometimes, I really think I hate Miranda. She's changed over the years. It's hard to date exactly when it started happening, maybe right after she got back from Mexico? It wouldn't surprise me. She was gone for so long, really. She missed a lot of things. Graduation, the trip to Italy, by the time the three amigos got back together, things had changed. We weren't three anymore. We were two and one. I suppose I would've been a little bitter in her situation, but not that bitter.  
  
The change was gradual. Miranda had always wanted to be rebellious for awhile, but it just got more extreme as time went on; black baggy bondage pants, balls and spikes, more black make-up, and some rather extreme hairstyles. Different music. Sometimes I think she listens to the things she does just because they're a certain style, sometimes I think she's trying too hard.  
  
But her words, her attitude, that's the worst. More cussing, that's for sure, and all those tiny sarcastic insults, designed to hurt people. She just can't seem to find the good side of anybody. When we walk through the halls, I hear her mocking voice, see the death glares of the people around her, but the most disturbing is the look of extreme pleasure on her face. She likes it! She wouldn't even care if Lizzie and I deserted her, even though we're her only friends.  
  
What I hate most though, is why I can't stop talking to her. Her number is still second (and last, I suppose) on my speed-dial, right after Lizzie's. My finger pushes that number, followed by the dial button before I've even officially decided to call anyway. I have to talk to her. Lizzie seemed colder today to me. Her hug, a micronewton less forceful than usual, her greeting kiss a microsecond shorter. Miranda will know, she'll know if anything's wrong. I bring the phone up to my face as it says "Hello?" in Miranda's voice.  
  
"Hey." At this point, I remember one good point about Miranda. She never says hello twice. I hate that stupid "Hello? Oh, hel-looo!" that adults do all the time, and even teenagers. Hell, I used to say it, we all did, but now there's just not enough time in the world for redundancy.  
  
"Cheer up, David." I don't hate it that she calls me David. I mean, it is my name. And it's better when than when she calls me 'David-child' in a mockingly motherly voice, like some ancient aunt in floral print and too much make-up. She knows why I'm calling. She always knows.  
  
"Miranda, are you sure it's ok? I mean, she seemed so much less affectionate today." I trail off, knowing I sound stupid even as I say it.  
  
"David, trust me. Lizzie loves you just as much as you love her. If you asked her tomorrow to marry you, she'd probably say yes, and run off to Las Vegas with you next weekend."  
  
"Yes, I'm sure."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"No problem." The click in the speaker definitively ends the transaction, and as I set the phone back in its cradle, I realize something. I need Miranda's reassurance almost as much as I need Lizzie's love.  
A/N: So. Well, anyway, that was a pretty stupid character, and I'll get out of this present tense rut one of these days, and write some real, third person, past-tensed narrative.  
  
Fira Khushrenada 


	3. Open War

Disclaimer: Just belonging to Disney, M/L/G/etc. are, just belonging to Disney (btw, that's not supposed to indicate the romance. Though it does, really, just maybe not in that order.

            Up until lunch, I was having a good day, today. The gods of Manic Panic had gifted me the materials with which to transform my usually blue-green (Punky Colors, however) flat hair into a chaotic mass of cherry red, orange, neon green, and electric yellow. In fact, my first hour teacher had nearly sent me to the principal's office, but I quickly explained to her that my last Math teacher had tried to send me on the same vacation, and our administration had failed to find an appropriate rule to punish me for breaking.

            When lunch finally came around, and my two bestest, bestest friends sat down with me, giving me quizzical looks, and no more. I quickly explained to them that my new hair was inspired by the latest stylings of PeeJee from the web-comic, "­Something Positive". Which of course sent me into my almost daily spiel on just how cool S*P really was. Which led to the only monthly dissertation that S*P was so cool, it even made me want to get into dungeons and dragons, except that the only D+D group in this backwater town was four scary teenagers that met in, of course, Larry Tudgeman's basement.  Why led to the inevitable, and nearly daily rant on Larry Tudgeman. My entire difficulty with the poor boy, is that, to all appearances, I should have a field day with the kid. However, the most obvious vulnerability of most every adolescent is their secrets, confusion, inner desires. Tudgeman knows what he wants. Sure he's unhygienic, lacking in social graces, and generally hated, yet these are things he knows, accepts. So, in my revenge, I get to hit his low points twice as often, since they're half as effective. 

            And that, my dear friends, is when Lizzie McGuire popped like a condom filled too full with helium…

            "Miranda Sanchez, I don't know what your problem is! You can't ever see the good side of anyone. We're your only friends, and that's only for old times' sake. This is why! Have you ever heard of being nice to someone for a change?"

            At this point I was torn. So many retorts I could use, 'Neither do I', 'If I don't, who will?', 'I tried that but it didn't work out for me', and the ever popular 'So?'. Yet, I could only use one. However, looking at Lizzie, still steaming, having jumped to her feet, and waving her index finger in my direction, it seemed I had only one choice. I giggled. 

            Bad choice, Miranda, bad choice. It seems my, now former, best friend wasn't quite as amused as I was about the subject. And so I was offered an ultimatum, surrender or she'll drop another atomic bomb, this time on Tokyo…er, well, maybe it was something more like apologize or leave the table, but anyway… before I left for one of the picnic tables, mostly deserted as they were placed in between several pin oaks, whose low branches made lunch eating difficult, I did my best to create fear even McGuire's heart of gold.

            "You know what this means, don't you, Lizzums? Contempt."

A/N: that was pretty short, but that's ok. It's a pretty pivotal scene in any case, the 'narrative' hook that my English teacher keeps telling me about. In any case, PeeJee and Something Positive belong to R.Millholland, and can be found at somethingpositive.net

**shameless plug** read my other stories! They're all anime… but…well, nevermind.

Love to my reviewers **blows a kiss** I'm thankful for such ecstatic praise.

~la, firako-chan…


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